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Tony Awards: The Canadian connection

When they open the envelopes to announce the Tony Awards for distinguished achievement in the New York Theatre on Sunday night, there’s a general feeling within the profession that a lot of them are going to be connected with the smash hit revival of
Pippin
currently delighting capacity audiences at the Music Box Theatre.

Some people credit the strength of Stephen Schwartz’s original score, others cite the inventive direction of Diane Paulus or a powerhouse cast, but you and I know what it really is.

The Canadian Connection.

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Three of the most important creative features of the show are not only from the true North, strong and free, but are also responsible for two of its 10 Tony nominations — best performance in a featured role by an actress for Andrea Martin and best consume design for a musical for Dominique Lemieux — and a great deal of the joie de vivre that fills the show.

It all started with Gypsy Snider, the delightful founder of Les sept doigts de la main, the unique acrobatic/circus group on whom Paulus built most of her production. Their name literally means “The seven fingers of the hand” and it refers to the fact that each group has seven individual members who wind up functioning as one unified entity.

“It all started with Barry Weissler,” says Gypsy, evoking the famed producer of
Chicago
and numerous other hits. “He had seen our press material and our promotional videos and called me into his office. ‘I don’t know what to do with you,’ he said, ‘but I love you!’ ”

Time passed, Paulus went up to Canada to work with Cirque du Soleil on
Amaluna
and savoured the unique Canadian circus tradition. She went to Weissler and said: “I want
Pippin
to be like a circus, but not quite Cirque du Soleil, something more handmade, more rough and tumble.”

Like Isaac Newton being hit by that legendary apple, Weissler shouted out “Les sept doigts” and put Paulus and Snider together. The result was instant magic, in every sense of the word.

“The two of us sat down almost two years ago and started storyboarding every scene of the show,” recalls Snider. “It was a mixture of several different impulses. You see, Les sept doigts is very urban and edgy and modern and Diane wanted a great deal of old school traditional circus performing.

“Fortunately, that’s how I was raised: in an old-fashioned circus troupe, so I knew how to make it cool and modern, while keeping the traditional elements.”

Snider began researching other uses of acrobatics and flying on Broadway, including the infamous
Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark
, which, coincidentally, now stars another Canadian, Jake Epstein, in the title role.

“One of things that shocked me in doing the research for other Broadway shows was that it’s all rigging and harnesses. They pull you up and spin you around. I don’t do that ever. For me, it’s all about the incredible human capacity we have. We insist on every performer on stage exploring every aspect of performing arts.”

Snider knew who could help her find the look she needed for her people and she convinced Paulus to turn to another Canadian, Montrealer Dominique Lemieux, who designed most of the costumes for Cirque du Soleil for many years.

“Gypsy knew me and my work for many years,” says Lemieux from Montreal, who has also gotten a Tony nomination for her work on the show. “She knew what I was doing with Cirque, even though this would have to be very different. You have words, you have characters. With cirque it’s all acrobats and music, but I loved the difference and learned to work with it.”

Snider knew there had to be one astonishing performance to unite the whole show and she decided to seek it out in Andrea Martin, the former SCTV and
Godspell
star who earned her fifth Tony Nomination playing Berthe, the grandmother in
Pippin
.

But it didn’t start well, “When Diane and Gypsy asked me to do the part,” said Martin, “I told them I wasn’t interested in playing a grandmother. Then my agent told me Les sept doigts were working on it and that caught my imagination. I’m a big devotee of pure circus, of Fellini and Giuletta Masina.

“I listened to the song until I had a concept of what I wanted the number to be. I told them we now look at age differently. No more clichéd grandmothers. I wanted to be a part of the circus company and I wanted to do something, dammit!”

“I wondered what we could do with Andrea,” sighed Gypsy. “She’s got wrist issues, her hands are the hands of an older woman, but I had to come up with things that were breathtaking.”

“I knew I could do it,” says Martin with her trademark feistiness. “People of my age, women in particular, are tired of giving up. We’re told that people don’t want to see women or men over 60 in a romance because it makes younger people uncomfortable. That’s bullshit! Why should living be uncomfortable?”

So Snider and Martin and Paulus evolved a spectacular number aided by Lemieux’s costumes which Martin preens, “Makes me look younger and more fit that I ever have in my life.”

The result is a song (“No Time At All”) which gets a standing ovation in the middle of the show every night and Snider calls it “the proudest moment of my career.”

Martin loves it too and attributes the power behind it to her adopted country.

“I’ve always believed about Canada that the people I’ve worked with have a singular focus when they work. Fewer distractions, fewer pulls to be a celebrity, less competitive. It always comes down to the work. Strip away the need for adulation and get down to how you make a great show.”

Americans, take heed. You want more hit shows like
Pippin
? Then hire more Canadians.

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